CityLab Daily: How to Survive a Tourist Boom

Also: When did Spain’s high-speed rail get so good? And how Utrecht became a cycling paradise.

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What We’re Following

Vacation, all I ever wanted: Tourism campaigns have long been a way for cities to lure in outsiders by showing off what they have to offer. But what if too many people take the bait? That’s what’s happening in Vancouver this summer as the city approaches its full tourism capacity, with tour buses clogging up streets and hotels running out of rooms.

Vancouver is hardly alone here. Longstanding vacation hotspots like Venice, Amsterdam, and Barcelona have been feeling this pain for years—and they’ve even offered an instructive model for other cities. Now Vancouver and others are following their lead with a different kind of campaign, one that aims to dissuade, disperse, or delay tourists in order to keep things from getting out of control. Today on CityLab: Hit by a Tourism Boom, Cities Wonder When to Stop Self-Promotion